Monday, March 31, 2014

There are a lot of things both Love and I learned from these losses, one of them is to make sure all the things we work hard for (in another words, our savings) are well utilized by our loved ones.

So, we took a leave last Friday.

First stop is to Tabung Haji. To put a 'Penama' for Tabung Haji is very straight forward. Just get a form, you can fill up to two Penamas. If anything happens to you, the savings will go to the first Penama. He/She will be the one to distribute all the money. If anything happens to both the first Penama and you, the money will go to the second Penama. Then, they need your fingerprint and just submit the form to the counter. In less than a minute, the process is complete.

The second stop is to ASNB. Here is where complications began.

See, I have two accounts with ASNB: ASB and ASW. Love has three: ASB, ASW and ASM.

Both of us have ASB loans; in which will end in 2030.

The Hibah Amanah program (the program they named for you to put the Penama for your savings) works in a way that:

1. You cannot have any loan (which is so leceh because our major portion of money is in ASB and we have loans there)
2. It comes with a charge of RM180 a lifetime, and RM10 every year
3. You can have up to 10 Penamas and you can put the percentage for each Penama (each Penama needs a siganture, a copy of IC and for all Penama needs one witness)
4. If anything happen to any of the Penama, that portion of money that should go to that Penama will go to Amanah Raya.

As if it is not troublesome enough for me, I have now difficulty in withdrawing my money because I was born with a rare case of eczema that changes my fingerprints every now and then. In another words, my IC and fingerprints do not match with each other.

The agents (CIMB, post office) said I need to withdraw them only at ASNB. But ASNB said, I need to get a letter from JPN. Which is sooo troublesome.

Now, I'm thinking of closing my ASW account and withdraw most of my money from ASB to put it in my Tabung Haji. Sorry lah ASNB, not only troubling me with the syariah compliance issue and the fact that Tabung Haji's dividend is better nowadays, you just have to make life a lotttt harder with all these.

So, what's left now is EPF. The problem is, it needs a witness whom is non other than your Penama. I hope to get it done in near time.

If you're wondering what happens to all your savings once you're not around, it'll go to Amanah Raya and the process takes ages. Hence, the post.

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

I was a little emotionally disturbed early last week. Little Girl was at a phase where she found it cool to actually hit people. Although she never hit me, Love was her favourite victim, followed by my two brothers.

The phase started a few weeks ago. I tried giving her "time out". Nope. Not working for my baby. She became more rebellious.

Love tried to scare her by placing her near our neighbour's dog. She rebelled.

Tried to slow talk to her every night. Works for a while. And then the phase began again.

The cause of her doing that was simple for me; she only hit those who spent less time with her. So the reason is simple: SHE WANTED ATTENTION.

My theory was proven since lately Love started to come home on time and she stopped hitting him altogether.

Still, I need to discipline her. I couldn't tell my brother to spend more time with her because they're still single and they have their own life. As for Khaira, this has to stop.

Boy, was I glad when I stumbled upon this poster..

Love was very supportive, so to cut the story short, around 8am on Saturday, we're already in Masjid Putra amazed with the beauty of the interior design of the mosque. Khaira was still in deep sleep, so I spent some quality time with BFF Sumayyah and his little hero.

The talk by Syeikh Tariq began with the basic parenting, so I would just focus my sharing today with the disciplining part.

How do we discipline?

Lead by example: Simple as this, action is louder than words. You can't be saying, "I can do this because I'm your mom. But you cannot do this!" This will create confusion for them.

Always be positive: We already know by now to say positive things to them rather than negative. Like, "Khaira please walk" rather than "Khaira don't run". But also Syeikh Tariq stressed on the importance of encouraging rather than instructing. For example, rather than saying "Musa, go read your book". It is better for us to say, "Musa, isn't it time for you to read your book?"

Discipline is meant to teach and nurture: Set this in mind so you can control your emotion towards your children

Gentle

Consistent: Be consistent, everytime they do something that needs disciplining, discipline them. No exception.

Removing temptations: If you know that your child doesn't want to perform solat because they love watching cartoon during that hour, make sure you switched off the TV at that hour first before asking them to perform solat.

Reasonable: Be reasonable. If their mistakes are still syariah compliance, don't punish them that badly.

Don't leave physical or mental marks: Even if they are at the age where it is allowed for you to hit them, don't leave any scars. And watch your words, make sure it won't leave mental marks for them.

10 things to avoid during disciplining

Cursing

Compare: Especially among siblings. Don't ever say to them that their sibling is better than them because of bla.. bla.. bla.. That will not only create jealousy among them, but also unhealthy competition between the siblings

Conditional love: "I'll love you if you get good grades" Then they will think if they don't excel, you don't love them.

Incorrect info: "Why are you crying? Men don't cry" Then, they will think they are not normal because they are a boy and they cry.

Humiliate them

Mocking

Threatening: "If you keep on running around, I won't give you any lollipop" Sounds familiar?

Saying no and not explaining why

Making doa against them

Exposing their faults and secrets: They need to be assured that they can rely on you.

How do we deal with ourselves?

Most of the time, the children are just being children. They run around, shout, hop, climb and if your child is like mine, she started to do all this at 10 at night when you're already tired and ready to bed. We call this her "hyper time".

So how to deal with yourselves. The tiredness might just make you do unnecessary things you might regret the next day. For me, I am happy I can deal with myself better as she gets older.

Turn to Allah: Doa helps me a lot to deal with Lil K and it rises my patience to another level.

Educate ourselves: Hence, the talk I attended.

Reduce the stress and tension in our lives: If works are stressful enough, I usually just go on the phone with my friends on the way back and talk about a totally unrelated stuff. And if I am still not okay, I would go to my room first once I arrived home and do my relaxation technique whatever I learned from my hypnotizing or better still.. I recite some Quran before I go downstairs to play with her.

Sunday, March 23, 2014

So, I bought this book in BBW 2013 - illustrated version for RM8. Such a highlight of my day at that time, because I'm one huge fan of Dan Brown.

Like any typical Dan Brown's book, this one is very mind stimulating. On code deciphering, and action, and history, every wow factor is there.

It discusses on Katherine Solomon whose research is based on mind power (yay!), where she tries to prove the ability of our mind using science. Her brother, Peter Solomon is the 33rd degree Mason whom has been kidnapped by Mal'akh because he wants to unveil the secret of the Mason. So the whole point of this story is actually for Langdon and Katherine to decipher a Mason map for the kidnapper, so that the kidnapper would release Peter.

Complications and a lottt of fun deciphering along the way.

My brother wanted to borrow this from me. But after I finished reading the whole thing, I decided to ignore his request. Having to say that, I wouldn't suggest this to a lot of you, because like most of Dan Brown's book.. it is controversial.

Remember Dan Brown, how he claims Jesus had an unborn baby when he was crucified.

This time around, he claims that the word "we" in Bible is not referring to the plurality of the Gods, but rather God is within us, ie. our mind. Everything is controlled by the mind and "we" is referring to everybody's mind.

Hmmm..

I don't like to go there, I don't even like it how Law of Attraction and The Secret could mislead us to think that our mind can control anything. Because it doesn't stop there. I believe in the end it all relates back to the Almighty, we have good faith in Him and in returns He grants our doa, simple as that.

Sometimes in your life, you got so blessed to have some potential students knocked on your door and you know you wouldn't want to miss that opportunity.

Doing research is very different than the classroom environment. For research, you need to think outside the box, you need to be brave to explore things on your own, the kind for me that is suitable either for real geek or real rebellion.

Very rare species in the world.

That is why I'm so happy when one of my FYP students won 2 awards in the FYP award this semester!!

One with the students and the co sv

Special award and software based winner

To top it all, both these students obtained A for their FYP :) Alhamdulillah.

To shape a winner is a much happier thing than to be a winner yourself. Now I understand the true meaning of giving.. I feel so contented.

"Verily you shall conquer Constantinople. What a wonderful leader will her
leader be, and what a wonderful army will that army be!"

It started with the father of Sultan Muhammad Al-Fateh, in which he was devastated as he couldn't conquer Constantinople. He asked if he was not a good leader, and that was when the people said he was indeed a good leader. And that they predicted that his son would be the one to conquer the city.

When Sultan Muhammad Al-Fateh was born, his father's mission was for him to achieve akhirat as well as duniawi. Juggling between leadership and religion and the skills of becoming a great army.

At the same time, they monitored closely to ensure they had the greatest army, those whom obey Islamic's rules. Those who woke up every night for Solat sunat, and obeyed their Sultan's instructions like no other.

When they have a great army already, their mission was to have a good rakyat. Both the father and Sultan Muhammad Al-Fateh pretended to be normal citizens to study about their rakyat. And they worked hard to stop all the corruptions and the things the rakyat did that were the opposite of Islam.

Until finally the Sultan achieved his victory with much hardship and faith towards the Almighty. Masha Allah.

Among the last pages of the book, when the Sultan managed to conquer the Aya Sophia church and turned it into a mosque, he looked for someone to be the first Imam for the mosque.

He asked the hundred thousands of his army, "Who among you have ever missed five times a day solat, please sit down."

None of them sat down, people. NONE.

Then he asked, "Who among you have ever missed solat sunat rawwatib, please sit down."

Half of his army sat down.

Then he asked, ""Who among you have ever missed solat sunat tahajjud, please sit down."

Everybody sat down except him. A Sultan. God knows how busy he was. But yettt... Huwaaaa..

That left me crying. Insaf sangaattttt!! :( And so he became the first imam for the mosque.

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Considering I was a working mother doing my PhD part time at the beginning of Khaira's life, I didn't have much time to spend with Khaira to teach her Hijaiyah everyday.

5 minutes every day (I try my best to make it a daily thingy but to be honest max is only 4 times a week), that's all I could afford at that time.

I started when she was 1 y.o. But I discovered bringing the flashcards everywhere was a chaos. She started biting them, spoiling food over them, I know I should just let it be, but urmm.. OCD much?

So I decided to be creative.. I downloaded this apps..

Alif Ba Ta Sign One

Since every time the hijaiyah appears, it produces a sound, I decided to print screen each Hijaiyah and use it somewhat like flashcard to my little girl. Because you bring your phone everywhere, I can do it at my own convenience.

Teaching her aa, ba, ta to ya was an exciting task. She was very obedient and excited everytime I took out my phone. Because the reward is that, she can watch Barney from my phone afterwards. Only that, I found Barqy method works easily for her compared to Furqan. Probably because the set of letters they introduced were closer to her heart.

The challenge came when I was teaching her fatha, qasra and dhamma (tanda atas, baris dan depan). But I figured, persistent is the key. I found doa helps me increase my patient and in the end, I am always at peace every time I teach her. Because they said you absorbed more when you're happy.

In the end, we want them to respect us, not scared of us.

I was in my morning (make it all day) sickness during her fatha, qasra and dhamma stage. I could barely find time to teach her because I was so busy vomiting throughout the night.

I downloaded this app called My First Iqra',

Did a little editing using my Note (I'm so in love with my Note 2, she's 14 months today!), and I taught her whenever I was well. Sometimes by the side of the road while waiting for my sate.

Then, I figured I was done with flashcards, let's give Furqan book a try. My first attempt yesterday made me a proud mother until now..

Alhamdulillah :) Penat lelah felt so worth it!! Who thought 5 minutes every other day and now she's at this stage.

About Me

A servant tries to please her Creator. A mother who believes in gentle birthing and islamic parenting. A wife to her high school sweetheart. A daughter, hoping to be better each passing day. A lecturer in which geeky stuff excites her. A travel junkie and a book worm whom life is never better after graduating her PhD :)